Higdon Post Office, Alabama
Tuesday morning I continued eastbound to Higdon, Alabama. There are several features there that are identifiably Higdon, including the Higdon Baptist Church and the Higdon Fire Department. This is the only one that is currently recognized by the U.S. Post Office, and it's the only Higdon shown on the state maps. I had visited there a few weeks before, but I hadn't really learned anything about the town. This time I stopped at the post office and found someone to take my picture out front. The postmaster suggested I talk to retired postmaster Billy Higdon who works part-time at the feed store. It turned out he wasn't working that day, but someone called him and he came out to the feed store to meet me.
Once again, a Higdon originally owned a lot of the property in the area. Billy's great-great-grandfather established the first post office there. He petitioned the U.S. Postal Service in 1878 to name the new post office Shiloh, but the name was already taken. The USPS suggested he call it Higdon.
I continued my ride into Georgia. My first choice for camping Tuesday evening was at Fort Mountain State Park, but, true to its name, the park is at the top of a mountain, and it was windy and unseasonably cold. I could live with either windy or cold, but not both. My tent has large mesh panels at both ends and on the top, and the rain fly will only partially block the wind. I rode next to Amicalola Falls State Park, but the situation there was the same, high, windy and cold. The innkeeper at the lodge directed me to a commercial campground about a mile from the park's entrance that was in a cove with much better shelter from the wind. That one, called Under the Hemlocks, turned out to be just fine.